The Sunday Poem: Susan Sherman...

This week we bring you a poem by Susan Sherman. Susan lives in New York City, but is a frequent visitor to New Mexico—and has deep ties to this country, as the above photo attests. We were both a lot younger when it was taken in the mid-eighties, out at Coronado’s Monument, but she was a great poet then and continues to be. “Border Guards” could be read as being about our dramatically contested southern border, so much in the news these days, but it also goes much deeper, addressing other borders as well: those that assault us from the outside, and those that live within.

BORDER GUARDS

There are lines drawn in the sand

that must never be crossed So say the pundits

the arbiters of boundaries definitions of what should

or should not be said or done There are lines

drawn on maps around cities boroughs neighborhoods

blocks houses The people who live in them

There are lines drawn around nations

Lines teeming with people waiting to get in

or out There are lines drawn around individuals

ethnic racial tribal lines Around genders he she

you me A demarcation of countries cultures continents

There are lines drawn around hemispheres

North South East West Around the Earth itself

There are longitude lines latitude lines

The Tropic of Capricorn is a line The Tropic of Cancer

The earth as it circles space As we delineate the seasons

Spring Winter Summer Fall

A child takes a crayon weighs it carefully

It is yellow the color of the sun or of her dreams

places she sees in the pictures she thumbs through at night

her fingers scrolling color across paper purple

then blue an ocean then fire blazing orange

and subtle green trees flowers objects without set form

Only she knows what they mean

Lines of memory are like that vivid weightless

ghost images without boundary Cezanne

seeing a forest of trees come into being

in the dawning sun paints them obsessively

branches leaves undulating out of birthing light

as they come alive in front of his discerning eyes

All this is not to say we do not need to name things

identify them ourselves but where exactly are these

boundaries borders guarded so carefully

with passports rules and laws? I can’t see them

Can you? These lines that label us define us

separate us These lines that must never be crossed

Susan Sherman

Poet, playwright, essayist, and founding editor of IKON magazine, Susan Sherman has had twelve plays produced off-off Broadway, has published seven collections of poetry as well as an adaptation from Spanish of Pepe Carril's, Shango de Ima (Doubleday, 1971) which she brought from Cuba in 1968. Her memoir, America’s Child: A Personal Chronicle of the Radical Sixties (Curbstone/Northwestern University Press) was published to critical acclaim in October, 2007. Her most recent books are The Light that Puts an End to Dreams: New and Selected Poems (Wings Press, 2012) and Nirvana on Ninth Street:Short Fiction with photos by Colleen McKay and an Afterward by Rona L. Holub (Wings Press, Fall, 2014). Go to Susan's web page for more information about her work, most recent books, and upcoming events.

What an important message in this poem ... to remember that much of human existence is circumvented by excessive order, by drawing lines ... and that, in our essence as humans shown as children or imaginative adults, the mark-making is more natural and describes our connections rather than our separations. Yes, thank you to all who do this and come here!